Ernest Freaking Hemingway was a (failed) KGB spy.

[Atreus21]

http://www.guardian.co.uk/books/2009/jul/09/hemingway-failed-kgb-spy

So sayeth the book Spies: The Rise and Fall of the KGB in America (Yale University Press).

Up till now, this has been a notably cheerful year for admirers of Ernest Hemingway – a surprisingly diverse set of people who range from Michael Palin to Elmore Leonard. Almost every month has brought good news: a planned Hemingway biopic; a new, improved version of his memoir, A Moveable Feast; the opening of a digital archive of papers found in his Cuban home; progress on a movie of Islands in the Stream.

Last week, however, saw the publication of Spies: The Rise and Fall of the KGB in America (Yale University Press), which reveals the Nobel prize-winning novelist was for a while on the KGB's list of its agents in America. Co-written by John Earl Haynes, Harvey Klehr and Alexander Vassiliev, the book is based on notes that Vassiliev, a former KGB officer, made when he was given access in the 90s to Stalin-era intelligence archives in Moscow.

Its section on the author's secret life as a "dilettante spy" draws on his KGB file in saying he was recruited in 1941 before making a trip to China, given the cover name "Argo", and "repeatedly expressed his desire and willingness to help us" when he met Soviet agents in Havana and London in the 40s. However, he failed to "give us any political information" and was never "verified in practical work", so contacts with Argo had ceased by the end of the decade. Was he only ever a pseudo-spook, possibly seeing his clandestine dealings as potential literary material, or a genuine but hopelessly ineffective one?

The latter reading would chime with his attempts to assist the US during the second world war in his fishing boat El Pilar, patrolling waters north of Cuba in search of U-Boats, making coded notes but only one sighting.

Revelations made in recent years have not been kind to some of the writers and artists who made their reputations in the Spanish civil war. George Orwell's list of public figures who were crypto-communists, prepared for a Foreign Office propaganda arm in 1949, sullied his saintly image when it was published six years ago. Research in Soviet archives led Antony Beevor to call Andre Malraux a "mythomaniac". Robert Capa has been accused of faking the best-known photo of that conflict. The virulent hatred of Arabs of Martha Gellhorn - Hemingway's third wife, who covered the civil war with him - has been exposed. And now it's the turn of Hemingway himself, the biggest name of all, to lose some of his lustre.

I try not to post stuff that might be considered paranoid, but this is just plain crazy. I may have to read this book.

 

[woolfe9998]

Not much we can tell from just that article. All it says is that an ex-KGB agent alleged that Hemingway agreed to be a spy for the KGB but never delivered any information. Even assuming that is true, I'm not sure what inference we can draw as to his motive without more information.

 

[Atreus21]

Not much we can tell from just that article. All it says is that an ex-KGB agent alleged that Hemingway agreed to be a spy for the KGB but never delivered any information. Even assuming that is true, I'm not sure what inference we can draw as to his motive without more information.

I should probably read the book first.

 

[unokitty]

http://www.guardian.co.uk/books/2009/jul/09/hemingway-failed-kgb-spy

So sayeth the book Spies: The Rise and Fall of the KGB in America (Yale University Press).

I try not to post stuff that might be considered paranoid, but this is just plain crazy. I may have to read this book.

Since Hemingway fought on the Communist supported side in the Spanish Civil War, I'd recommend that you just read For Whom the Bell Tolls.



Uno

 

[Whiskey16]

Since Hemingway fought on the Communist supported side in the Spanish Civil War, I'd recommend that you just read For Whom the Bell Tolls.

This may also be more correctly presented as a fight against fascism. It is quite incorrect lay out a simple 'communists' label for whom composed the Spanish Republican forces:

Their supporters ranged from centrists who supported a moderately capitalist liberal democracy to revolutionary anarchists; their base was primarily secular and urban, but also included landless peasants..
..
The conservative, strongly Catholic Basque country, along with Galicia and the more left-leaning Catalonia, sought autonomy or even independence from the central government of Madrid. The Republican government allowed for the possibility of self-government for the two regions,[76] whose forces were gathered under the People's Republican Army (Ejército Popular Republicano, or EPR), which was reorganized into Mixed brigades after October 1936.[77]

Is your positioning a relative defence of the long lasting fascist state under Franco, or even to that of Franco's early alliance with the Nazis and Mussolini?

Here's just a small snippet of history that helped motivate people against Franco's Nationalists:

The Spanish Foreign Legion committed atrocities, many women and children were killed, and the army carried out summary execution of leftists. The repression in the aftermath was brutal. In Asturias, prisoners were tortured.[81] Franco believed that he was justified in the brutal use of troops against Spanish civilians. Historian Paul Preston: "Unmoved by the fact that the central symbol of rightist values was the reconquest of Spain from the Moors, Franco did not hesitate to ship Moorish mercenaries to fight in Asturias, the only part of Spain where the crescent had never flown. He saw no contradiction about using the Moors because he regarded left-wing workers with the same racialist contempt he possessed towards the tribesmen of the Rif." [82]

Articles 24 and 26 of the 1931 constitution had banned the Jesuits; this proscription deeply offended many within the conservative fold. The revolution in the Republican zone at the outset of the war, killing 7,000 clergy and thousands of lay people, deepened Catholic support for the Nationalists.[83][84]

Be careful with such simplistic statements. Hemmingway, as Spain, was complex.

 

[zinfamous]

This may also be more correctly presented as a fight against fascism. It is quite incorrect lay out a simple 'communists' label for whom composed the Spanish Republican forces:

Is your positioning a relative defence of the long lasting fascist state under Franco, or even to that of Franco's early alliance with the Nazis and Mussolini?

Here's just a small snippet of history that helped motivate people against Franco's Nationalists:

Be careful with such simplistic statements. Hemmingway, as Spain, was complex.

all of this.


we should also realize that whether or not one was working for the KGB or CIA during the Cold War, many of these agents were actively talking to each other and cooperating behind the scenes form side to side, in order to insure that their respective leaders didn't blow each other up.

 

[Don Vito Corleone]

Interesting if true! I'm a little surprised I've not heard of this since the book was published four years ago.

 

[unokitty]

This may also be more correctly presented as a fight against fascism. It is quite incorrect lay out a simple 'communists' label for whom composed the Spanish Republican forces:

Is your positioning a relative defence of the long lasting fascist state under Franco, or even to that of Franco's early alliance with the Nazis and Mussolini?

Here's just a small snippet of history that helped motivate people against Franco's Nationalists:

Be careful with such simplistic statements. Hemmingway, as Spain, was complex.

Don't know anything about this 'Hemmingway' to which you refer...

Nonetheless, I still think that Hemingway's For Whom the Bell Tolls' is worth reading.

Sorry if that offends you.

Uno

 

[Whiskey16]

Nonetheless, I still think that Hemingway's For Whom the Bell Tolls' is worth reading.

Sorry if that offends you.

I corrected your classification of the anti-Franco Republicans as just being 'communist.

'Offense' of the book? Your silly fabrication.

 

[Gintaras]

http://www.guardian.co.uk/books/2009/jul/09/hemingway-failed-kgb-spy

So sayeth the book Spies: The Rise and Fall of the KGB in America (Yale University Press).



I try not to post stuff that might be considered paranoid, but this is just plain crazy. I may have to read this book.

First, stop living in the past...better look, what The Future can bring to you and others...
Better, wonder about, how US so caslled allies are associated with communists(their past- you do wonder about people's past...aren't you) in EC: José Manuel Barroso, Angela Merkel, Dalia Grybauskaitė to name a few...

KGB "SPY"? It's always - theirs - KGB are spies, ours CIA are - intelligence...

Who are you? A media brainwashed ape? or a human being?

apes on "the other side of the fence", think, just like you - KGB - intelligence, CIA - are spies...

What? CIA - are so innocent?
Do you like STATS? who's better or worse? who participated in killing more or less?

I would recommend you to read Erich Maria Remarque books...

And...as Erich Maria Remarque said: "One Man's death is a Tragedy, many People deaths are - Statistics...

And...who do you want to be? A Human, who can live no matter what side "of the fence" they're? Or an brainwashed Ape - who think, most important is - on what side of the fence you're.....

 

[davmat787]

First, stop living in the past...better look, what The Future can bring to you and others...
Better, wonder about, how US so caslled allies are associated with communists(their past- you do wonder about people's past...aren't you) in EC: José Manuel Barroso, Angela Merkel, Dalia Grybauskaitė to name a few...

KGB "SPY"? It's always - theirs - KGB are spies, ours CIA are - intelligence...

Who are you? A media brainwashed ape? or a human being?

apes on "the other side of the fence", think, just like you - KGB - intelligence, CIA - are spies...

What? CIA - are so innocent?
Do you like STATS? who's better or worse? who participated in killing more or less?

I would recommend you to read Erich Maria Remarque books...

And...as Erich Maria Remarque said: "One Man's death is a Tragedy, many People deaths are - Statistics...

And...who do you want to be? A Human, who can live no matter what side "of the fence" they're? Or an brainwashed Ape - who think, most important is - on what side of the fence you're.....

And I would recommend you don't call people brainwashed apes when you obviously have no clue as to what you are replying to. You did this to me, and I took the high road and chalked it up to a language barrier. But here, you continue to disparage people for no fucking reason, other than to insert your anti US bullshit.

Like I said before, stick to your USSR era issues of PRAVDA, much safer to let your government think for you than to wander online and interact with others.

 

[Pr0d1gy]

You're all a bunch of filthy conspiracy theorists!

 

[unokitty]

I corrected your classification of the anti-Franco Republicans as just being 'communist.

'Offense' of the book? Your silly fabrication.

You haven't corrected anything. Though, you have presented a logical fallacy.

In particular, you have set up a "Straw man."

Have fun with it.

Uno

 

[Gintaras]

But here, you continue to disparage people for no fucking reason, other than to insert your anti US bullshit.

I'm not anti...I'm pro - I'm for sexual perversions and alcoholism...

I just don't know who to choose, out of 2 candidates for New York(A Capitol Of The World) mayor post:

- a lesbian-alcoholic - Christine Quinn...or
-an oversexed Anthony Weiner, who was sending pics of his penis to women on internet...

Pretty good choices on Morals in The Capitol Of The World...

I'm not an anti...however...somehow, my morals won't let me be pro too....afterall...